


green was the color

by dwoht



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, au - no powers. kara is an artist.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:21:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27224155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dwoht/pseuds/dwoht
Summary: It's just a painting, but it's also feelings that fly too fast for her to put anywhere but on a canvas.or,Kara creates a Christmas present.
Relationships: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor
Comments: 7
Kudos: 138





	green was the color

It’s just a painting.

It’s a Christmas gift to her girlfriend’s mom, which already is maybe the weirdest thought Kara has had in a long time, considering the Luthors pretty much despise her, and she still isn’t convinced they like their daughter much more.

Regardless, here she is, about to pour her heart and soul into a piece that might never even see the light of day after it has been gifted. 

Kara wonders if, next time they manage to get over to Lena’s childhood home, the canvas will be stuffed into the attic or hung up on a wall. She honestly doesn’t know where you’d put a portrait of your child; it would be a bit creepy for someone else’s bedroom, a bit egocentric for Lena’s own old room, and a little awkward anywhere else to just have it watching you.

Kara shakes her head. _Where they put it is their business_ , she reminds herself. _First, you have to make the darn thing._

It’s the first gift she’s ever actually gotten the Luthors, much less Lillian. The previous years, she’d just tagged on and signed the card for whatever Lena picked out, knowing she wasn’t rich enough to get them anything they couldn’t get themselves, and not brave enough to try and go sentimental.

Until this year.

The Luthors always support Lena in everything she does, theoretically, and this has evolved to include her dating an artist. Still, though they never actually have outright said it, Kara just knows that Lillian and Lionel secretly hoped Lena would get serious with someone who was a little more… Luthor-like.

Kara thinks about herself, who grew up going to public school, was raised on a farm, and up until age twenty didn’t have more than five-thousand dollars to her name. So, yeah, she couldn’t be more _not_ the Luthors’ type.

She knows they're not really that shallow about finances, given they own a multi-billion dollar company, and she's come to realize that it's more they just don't _get_ it. They don't understand art. They don't understand how to consume it, much less make it, and therefore, don't understand why someone _else_ would want to.

That’s what Kara tells herself, at least, because the alternative is that they just hate _her._ While this is equally possible, Kara is nothing if not a people-pleaser to a fault, and the idea that her girlfriend’s parents just straight up don’t like her is a little too much.

It's just a painting, but it's also a request for approval from the people who raised the woman she hopes to marry.

So, there she is, painting the Luthors her reason for doing what she does. Lena is the perfect model, as always, and is sitting on the wooden stool from Kara’s childhood bedroom as the early morning light filters through. A slight breeze is allowed through the open window, and it lightly plays with Lena’s hair, creating almost exactly the concept Kara wants to put on the canvas.

She’d decided right away that the painting wasn’t going to be one of those stuffy old Founding Fathers’ type portraits. “Just because I use oil doesn’t mean I live in the 1800s,” she’d informed Lena the first time she’d shown her the studio.

She picks up the pencil and starts to create a rough plan, though her sketch is really just glorified scribbling.

All it takes is a swipe of a pencil here or a circle there to plan out the entire background, little notes of where it’ll blend into the portrait itself and all. Initials with question marks or underlines allow her to play with different color schemes in her mind, and rough lines outline what lighting she wants to convey, in case it changes by the time she gets to that.

To anyone else, the canvas is gibberish. To her, it’s already a work of art.

Kara's style is mostly just get a lot on the piece, let it all smush together, and then wait for it to dry and see what needs more layers. She doesn't like stuffy museum art where it's all one dimensional and there to be looked at. Sure, she understands that some of the paintings are worth millions of billions of trillions of dollars and they have to preserve them, or whatever, but she prefers her art a little more tactile, a little more interactive. She wants her brushstrokes to create waves on the canvas for hands to touch and fingers to trace.

Lena is patient as Kara mixes colors and matches shades, figuring out her final palette as she goes. She messily scribbles down ratios for certain shades she's never made before. The effort is pointless, though. Kara was really never all about formality and perfection, so she doubts she'll ever actually go back to her notes, and will just try to mix it again from memory next time.

Slowly, she lays out literally every tube she owns on a folding table she had found for $2 on Craigslist. The thing had actually had mold on it when she went to pick it up, but it _was_ two dollars. Lena had all but insisted on buying Kara a new table, saying that twenty-dollars for an adequate painting surface was hardly taking advantage of her money, but Kara had profusely declined, stating that it could be cleaned.

(Which, it could, but gross.)

“This table is really great,” Kara says, grinning cheekily over at Lena.

Lena rolls her eyes, but she isn’t even trying to hide her smile when she replies, “Keep telling yourself that, love.”

Joining the paints are buckets of water and paint thinner, all her brushes, and even a couple extra canvases in case she decides she needs to start over.

It's just a painting, but it's also the most nerve wracking thing she's ever done. Except maybe asking out Lena in the first place.

"You ready?" Lena asks softly. All teasing has been put aside, and her voice eases into a calm encouragement when she spots the slight traces of nervousness coming out in Kara.

She shrugs. "Ready as I'll ever be, right?”

The good thing about painting Lena is that Lena doesn't have to pose, unlike a lot of models. Kara knows her face better than she knows her own, and could probably sketch her blindfolded. She doesn't need Lena's head angled a certain way to know exactly how her hair falls, and she doesn't need Lena's eyes in front of her to match their color perfectly. It's more like she's moral support (which she desperately needs).

Kara begins with the background, picking up a palette and depositing bits of green from just about every tube possible. Swirling them together, adding in a dash of white here or a streak of black there, she starts to build her base. Inspired by Lena's eyes, of course, she slowly creates an almost mosaic type look. The dabs of paint reach all the way to the corners, and then some, and then she brings them in just over the lines she'd set for the edge of her face. 

Once she's fairly satisfied, knowing she'll probably go back and layer even more once it's dry, she moves on to Lena herself. She blends the perfect skin tone (perfect meaning it's just a little too light, so the contours and shadowing don't end up too dark), and starts brushing haphazardly onto the canvas, a general base so that it's guaranteed no white is going to show.

It's just a painting, but, at the same time, it's inside jokes and childhood horror stories.

She can't help but smile as she finishes her rough foundation, remembering a conversation they'd had their first summer. It had started with Kara questioning Lena's almost unhealthy obsession with sunscreen. She'd spend at minimum twenty minutes rubbing sunblock into every single inch of her skin before they went out of the house. They must have gone through twenty tubes in a month.

"You know that's, like, a lot?" Kara had asked.

“Yes, I know. Fortunately, you didn’t know me at this point in my life, but I used to be pure white," Lena had replied, rolling her eyes.

Kara swiped the tube from her and squeezed out a very normal amount. "Pretty sure you're still pure white."

"No, but I was, like, _seriously_ white," Lena said again, eyes comically wide. "Imagine the most Irish person ever, who is also afraid of sunlight and never goes outside. That was me. All the time."

"I want a picture," Kara demanded.

"I looked like that ghost. Casper?” Lena complained. "My school picture always overexposed me, and it was like I wasn't even there. Just two eyes, hair, and a uniform.”

"What a hard life," Kara had said. 

Lena stole the sunscreen back with a pout and finished, "So, sunscreen. A lot of it. It has taken a lot of dedication and time to build this almost non-existent tan. I'm not going let one sunburn throw all that perseverance away."

"Of course not," Kara had agreed. She never did end up getting to see the picture, but every summer she knows to buy almost five times the amount of sunscreen any normal person would wear, and then a little bit for herself as well.

"What?" Lena huffs as she eyes Kara’s silent laugh

She finishes a vague Lena shape in the foundational skin tone, and just shakes her head. "Nothing. Just thinking about how pale you are."

"Hey!" Lena complains.

Kara picks up the white and swipes where she wants the eyes. Her brush then gets loaded with her favorite green, and she marks out two spots where Lena's pupils are going to be.

From there, she returns to the original skin color and mixes about ten different shades. Lighter ones for highlights, pink toned ones for a blush, blue toned, and orange toned, shadowed ones for building shape. She fishes out a smaller brush from her collection, dumps her big one in a bucket of paint thinner, and gets to work.

It's just a painting, but it's also a culmination of years of refining her work specifically surrounding Lena. She'd done an exercise a couple years ago where she'd actually wanted to try and paint Lena blind. She always said she could, so she figured she'd go ahead and try and do it for real. It was messy, for both of them, as Kara's hands drifted from her canvas to Lena's face, slowly depositing paint just about everywhere.

Still, she now knows Lena's face like the back of her hand. She fills her brush head with shadows and follows the lines of Lena's jaw, remembering the way her soft skin had felt under her fingertips like it was yesterday. Pronounced, but not masculine, rounded and soft, but distinct.

Kara paints Lena's jaw the way it feels to curl up under it after a long day at work. She paints the way they fit together like they were drawn for each other. She paints how it feels for her lips to press soft kisses along the jawline on her way to her collarbones. She paints how to felt to hold Lena for the first time, hands drifting weightlessly up her neck.

It's just a painting, but it's also memories she cherishes far too much to ever speak out loud.

Their almost-first kiss was something of a story, if you ask her.

Kara had just decided to shoot her shot, knowing that the future-CEO was eons out of her league, you don't wait around and play it safe with a girl like Lena. So, when Lena had come in for her usual morning cup before work, Kara handed her a napkin with a number and her coffee.

She honestly hadn't expected to hear from her, if the surprise on Lena’s face had been any indication. She also wasn't completely sure the boy she was with wasn't a significant other, but that evening, she'd picked up her phone and answered a call from an unknown number.

“Hello,” the voice had said. Soft, smooth, oddly familiar. “It’s Lena.”

"From Red Berry?" she'd asked, almost holding her breath.

"Are you giving your number to a lot of other girls named Lena?"

Kara exhaled with a laugh that washed all of her anxieties away. "No, no, I'm not. I'm just surprised and excited and… happy. I'm happy you called."

"Well, that makes two of us," Lena had said. Kara nibbled on her lower lip, wondering if it was her turn to speak. Just when the pause started to feel a little bit too long, Lena spoke again, unable to mask the hint of amusement. "So, where are we going?"

"It's surprise," Kara had said, which was code for, _I have no idea, I'm going to discuss it with my best friend and plan it the day of._ "What are you up to tomorrow?"

"A little eager, huh?" Lena teased, her chuckle crackling over the phone.

Kara just smirked. "For a girl like you? Shamelessly." She did a little victory pump when she was greeted with silence on the other end, sincerely hoping Lena was impressed with her once-in-a-lifetime boldness, and not weirded out. "So, tomorrow? I'll pick you up at seven?"

"You don't have a car," Lena said, almost accusatorially. 

Kara let out a chuckle. "What are you, my stalker?"

"No, seriously," Lena said. "How are you going to pick me up without knowing my address or having a vehicle?"

It's a fair point. Kara _wants_ to be a stud, but all she has is a stupid bike. Meanwhile, Winn "I haven't had a date since my junior year of high school" Schott has one of the nicest cars she's ever seen. She shakes her head. _Focus._

"How about I meet you somewhere?” she suggests. “Red Berry Coffee? For old time's sake, of course."

"That sounds good," Lena had said. Kara detected a hint of a smile in her voice. "I'll see you then."

Coasting up to her place of work, her happiness over not having to clock in pretty much outweighed any nerves that she had going on. She swung her right leg off the seat of her bike, and hopped off as she approached the racks and the girl she'd been waiting for. "I'm late?" she said, half apologizing, half kicking herself.

Lena shook her head. “No, I just like to be early."

And so began the evening that Kara has long since forgotten.

It doesn't matter what they did, it matters how she felt. It had been almost scary how comfortable they were together. There were the usual first date jitters, of course, complete with the inevitable awkward brush of hands, or eye contact that holds on for just a little too long, but once their conversation started, it just wouldn't stop.

Kara realized halfway through that Lena was seeing her candid and uninhibited, not because she'd meant to, but because she'd forgotten to play it cool or play herself differently. Not only that, but she wasn’t nervous at all. Lena’s smile gave her butterflies, no doubt about that, but the gentle kind, merely lifting her spirits. 

So, no, Kara can't recall the things they ate or the streets where they walked or the shops that they'd poked around in. What she _can_ remember is the twinkle in Lena's eyes, the shaking of her own hands, and the flutter of her heart when they ended up face to face, no more than a foot apart.

With confidence that could only have come from the hope Lena had enjoyed their time as much as Kara did, Kara had carefully brushed Lena's hair back behind her ear. It was a horribly cheesy move, because admittedly, Kara didn’t find herself in this situation a lot, but the gentle movement lifted a slight flush to Lena's cheeks anyhow.

Her index finger twisted once around a lock of hair, and then lead the rest of her hand down the side of her face to cup her jaw. She knew her hands were shaking. She knew that Lena knew it. She knew she didn't really care. What kind of girl in their right mind _wouldn't_ be slightly juttery in her position?

Her other hand brought itself up to the other side, and then she was just holding Lena, whose hands had already found themselves around Kara's waist.

Right as she leaned in, feeling the curve of Lena's jaw follow her gaze, Lena had whispered, "I don't kiss on the first date."

A real mood killer, that's for sure, but Kara was nothing if not an improviser, so she'd just said, "Who mentioned kissing?" and brought their foreheads together.

It's just a painting, but it's also feelings that fly too fast for her to put anywhere but on a canvas.

Kara's brush falters at the end of her stroke, but she shakes it off and blends in some green to her shadowing. She follows the side of Lena's face, the slight indent where her eyes sit, and swipes a few long lines to produce Lena's nose. She resists the urge to paint it red, an almost comical color that Lena finds herself sporting every time she gets her annual cold.

They're not really sure what it is about October, but, for the last eleven years, Lena claims she's gotten sick on the same week of the month. 

Kara's not totally convinced that it's been the exact same week, but, sure enough, every October, she's found herself nursing a Lena cold for a few days.

The first day, it’s always just a little hint of what's to come. Lena would cough a little, complain of an itchy throat, or maybe sneeze once or twice. Still, despite what history might say, she will be adamant she is _not_ sick. Not this year. The second day, whatever symptoms she had the day before will be just a little stronger, and Lena will grumble and start preparing for a few days off. 

Kara will spend the third and fourth day bringing her her favorite soup (minestrone), her favorite Gatorade (yellow, duh), her favorite tea (ginger, ground from fresh ginger root and sweetened with a dash of honey from Kara's mom's bees), and her favorite sick person snack.

Her favorite snack is Cheez-It’s, but Kara has never really understood the last one, and always brings her Goldfish instead. Lena always complains about it, but Kara just says, "It's the snack that smiles back, Lena. It’s cheerful.”

The fifth day, Lena will be on the road to recovery, but if she bats her eyelashes one too many times or interrupts Kara's work with soft kisses to the back of her neck, Kara can absolutely be persuaded to make her something to eat or go on a walk with her. She's a pushover like that.

Her paintbrush longs for the red as she picks up some skin toned highlight to pull across the tip of Painting Lena's nose, but she forces herself to continue with her color scheme and blend a bit of orange into it. The orange follows guidelines Kara didn't even know were there, and pulls her up through her forehead, down along the contouring of her cheeks, and begins her lips.

Kara mixes an almost blood orange with highlights of red, and begins to paint her second favorite feature of Lena's face.

She thinks about their actual first kiss. It was their second date, which, much like the first, Kara can't really remember now, but she _does_ remember the end.

Kara had playfully said, "Walk me to my bike?" to which Lena answered, "Why, of course."

She'd debated all night whether to do _it_ , wondering if Lena's thing was no kissing until a certain date, or just no kissing on the first one. She'd stood there fiddling with her hands in her pockets trying to figure out what to say, when Lena had just let out an exasperated sigh, and wrapped her arms around her neck. She froze for approximately five seconds, then loosened up, and allowed her own hands to find their way onto Lena's waist. 

"Can I kiss you?" Lena murmured, already leaning in. Kara was mentally kicking herself for not doing it on her own when their lips met.

It wasn't fireworks. It wasn't bells and whistles. It didn't shake Kara off of her feet or knock the breath out of her. It was soft swirls of color behind closed eye lids, like the sunset they'd watched that evening, but gentler. It was experimental, figuring out how the other person moves, and figuring out that it was the best kiss she's ever head.

When they’d pulled away, Kara didn’t feel dizzy or disoriented, she felt alive. Her body vibrated with excitement and energy, and her mind felt clear as she looked at Lena and saw her future.

Kara paints the way every kiss feels like the first, leaving her wide-eyed and awake, but feet confidently on the ground.

It's just a painting, but it's also a photo album of memories.

She paints all the kisses they've shared. Quick pecks before work in the morning, long, slow kisses in early Sunday mornings, and all the things they've said to each other without having to use words.

She paints the things Lena’s lips say to her, though, too. She paints the bad jokes at two in the morning, the sweet nothings as they drift off to sleep, the angry frustrations during a fight, and the soft apologies that inevitably follow. She paints every time they've said "I love you" and every time she didn't have to say it for her to know.

And then the red blends back into skin tone and back into swirls of orange, and adds another layer over the bridge of Painting Lena's nose, all the way up to her eyes. Kara has already swept the first beginnings of eyebrows on, and picks up a clean brush to start Lena's eyes, which are unquestionably Kara's kryptonite.

She'd been working another early shift at Red Berry, steaming milk, pulling shots, and building drinks for the morning rush. After the stream of people off to their nine to five jobs trickled off, she'd gotten a ticket with the name _Lena_ on it. Lena had ordered a latte macchiato, short pull, with whole milk. She snagged a pitcher off the rack and set it steaming, smacking the handle against her grounds bucket and pulling a new shot.

She'd just finished pouring the milk and dumping the shot through it when she noticed the customer was already waiting at the bar. "You know," she said, "you don't have to order your macchiato short pull. That's just how it's supposed to —" And then she made the mistake of looking up and into the eyes of her customer.

She didn't even trail off, she just stopped talking. Lena's eyes were the most striking green she had ever, and still has ever, seen. The woman was no doubt exhausted due to the early hour, but her eyes somehow managed to hold a twinkle.

"Sorry?" Lena had said, dumping a sugar in. She looked up, eyebrows furrowed.

Kara's breath caught in her throat, and she swallowed harshly. "Um," she repeated dumbly, "I was going to say that that's how we're supposed to make it. All macchiatos are short pull by default." 

"Starbucks would say otherwise," Lena said with a playful little smile.

Kara chuckled, flipping the switch to run some water onto her transfer pitcher. Her fingers were all but itching to paint Lena's eyes, and she knew she'd be able to spend forever trying to figure out all the different flecks and shadows and colors. Already, she began mixing paints in her mind and blending different shades on a canvas. She had just finished building her base, when Lena turned, cutting off her eyesight, tossed her wooden stirrer in the trash, and headed out the door. 

She turned around just before her second foot made it out, and tossed Kara a wink and a, "Thanks for the coffee. Best I ever had." 

It's just a painting, but it's also moments she only remembers through colors.

Kara's never been good with words. She figures that's why she became an artist. So she holds her palette with about fifty different kinds of green on it, and lets her brush do the talking, as always.

A dab of light green is the first time Lena ever saw snow, eyes lit up with childhlike wonder. A slightly yellower green is their many picnics at the park, sunshine and a warm breeze carrying them through the afternoon. A streak of a hunter green so dark it's almost black is the time they fought so horribly Kara almost thought that was the end. The slash is words that hurt just because they came from Lena, soothed by a cloud of a gentler green, this one framed with tears and apologies.

She lets her brush show summertime brightness and autumn chills. She lets her paint explain the emotions Lena leaves in her eyes every second of the day like an open book, if only someone were to take the time to read it. She flicks and scribbles the silent "I love you" that screamed through Lena's eyes six months into their relationship, and she gently frames the time she said it out loud with a racing heart and shaky thoughts. 

And then she's building hair. It's a soft brown that layers into dark greens to blend in with the background and give it some shape. She paints how it feels to wake up in the morning with Lena tucked into her chest. She paints what it's like to press a soft kiss into the top of Lena's head every time they wake up and every time they go to sleep. She paints the way she braids Lena's hair absentmindedly as they curl up onto the couch at night to watch TV, and the way the smell of her shampoo calms her immediately.

She paints the way she can instantly spot Lena in the office just by examining the back of her head, tight ponytail or an almost ballet like bun wound up without a single strand out of place. And then she paints the other side of her, the side reserved just for her. She paints hair still half wet after a shower, and hair thrown up into a messy bun so different from the ones she wears to work.

She paints everything. And then it's done.

Kara signs her name at the bottom, and tosses down her last brush. She refuses to think about cleaning up or showering or getting the paint out of her hair _right now_ before it dries into a crusty mess that will have to be soaked in paint thinner or cut out. She refuses to think about the fact that this is now a finished piece of art that she's going to have to actually give to somebody. 

She just pulls Lena over to her and presses herself against her back as they look at the canvas together. Lena links their hands together, and pulls her left arm up to kiss her palm, before settling their joint hands on her chest where Kara feels her heart beat strong and true. Her chin rests on Lena's shoulder. "What do you think?”

"I think I want to kiss you," Lena says. She suffices by pressing her lips against the corner of Kara's mouth, the only place she can reach from her angle. "I think it's incredible, and my parents better love it, or I’m stealing it from them, because this is a true work of art.”

“Well, I can only paint what I see,” Kara murmurs into her ear.

Lena sighs, shoulders slumping slightly, and Kara can feel the way she still can’t escape the weight of years of endless parental criticism in her childhood. “I think you embellish me, Kara, but thank you.”

It's just a painting.

But it's also so much more.

**Author's Note:**

> quinnfebrey on tumblr. come chat!


End file.
